Posted on 06/01/2009 10:17:14 AM PDT by sistabrista
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290840,00.html
Date misleading, 2007.
That was in 2007. Oscar is now known as the bailout cat, curling up next to companies that have less that 4 hours to declare bankruptcy.
I remember this story. The Grim Reaper kitty.
Animals have extra senses.
Great. A DeathCat. Every nursing home needs a DeathCat.
(Don’t let that thing get anywhere near me!)
Someone needs to examine that cat to determine the death virus it spreads when it curls up to its victim.
Key to a longer life:
GET RID OF THE CAT!
The tv show House had an episode about a cat like this. Turns out it was just attracted to those with high fevers or electric blankets. ie a warm place to sleep.
I think the consensus was that in the final few hours before death, people’s odors change slightly, enough for a cat to notice. Remember that male cats can detect a female cat in heat from miles away.
Thus, the question should be why would the cat find this odor attractive?
Importantly, cats can only smell about 14 times as well as people, but some dogs have such an acute sense of smell, thousands of times better than a humans, and the facility to interpret those smells, that they surpass all but the most accurate odor sensory equipment.
Therefore, if there is a change in odor of a dying person, dogs should be intensely aware of the fact, even a considerable distance away. Thus, they could be trained to be far more accurate than this cat.
Wouldn’t it be great if Oscar the Deathcat curled up to some guy, then the guy pulled out a gun, shot Oscar, and said “I may have only four more hours to live, but at least I’m gonna outlive you.”
with Obamacare, Oscar will be a very busy cat...
LOL! Now, if only we had Oscar the political trend cat who could predict what political movements would still be around 4 years from now
Look, these people also probably are emanating certain odors that the cat picks up on as well, odors possibly of already dead or dying tissues, generally the breath of dying people is not very pleasant and there are probably scent cues that the kitty is picking up on.
I think maybe the ancient Egyptians had noticed that cats can do death watches, and perhaps that is why they connected cats with their spirituality and afterlife beliefs.
This happened some time ago. Oscar was found dead, a dented bedpan found nearby and presumed the weapon.
http://www.dailyredundancy.com/archives/1031.html
Correction. Dogs have the ability to detect many odors that even our most accurate equipment can't come close to detecting.
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